Corporation Tax Bill Shrinks At Top Companies

The tax take from Britain's biggest companies remained broadly flat last year at approximately £77bn but corporation tax accounted for a dwindling share of the total, a key report will say.

The annual study by The Hundred Group, whose members are the finance directors of companies principally drawn from the FTSE-100 index, will show on Tuesday that the overall tax contribution of its members accounted for roughly 14% of total government receipts.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the professional services firm which helped to compile the report, plans to issue the study under embargo on Monday, but Sky News has obtained some of the principal findings ahead of its distribution.

The report is expected to show that while the overall tax take from Hundred Group members remained flat, corporation tax accounted for just 11% of the total at around £8bn.

That is a smaller proportion than in previous years, which is explained by the fact that other, indirect taxes such as business rates and employee taxes have grown as a proportion of the overall figure.

The Hundred Group report will be published amid a maelstrom of publicity surrounding the payment of taxes in the UK by major British companies and overseas multinationals which operate in the UK.

Companies including Amazon, Google (NasdaqGS: GOOG - news) and Starbucks have faced the ire of MPs and campaigners over their minuscule corporation tax bills, resulting in an agreement by Starbucks last month to pay a minimum of £20m in corporation during the next two years regardless of the profitability of its UK business.

The Hundred Group study is expected to point out that the current focus on corporation tax - which is levied on company profits - is fruitless given its relative volatility. People familiar with the report say it argues that the Government should focus on more stable sources of tax revenue, such as taxes on buildings and other fixed assets.

Under the coalition, the headline rate of corporation tax is being reduced by at least 1% annually as ministers strive to create the most competitive tax regime in the G20 group of nations for major companies.

As many as 95 of the Hundred Group's members are understood to have participated in the survey, a record turnout.

PwC declined to comment on Monday.